The horse tugging at the reins awakened him, but he didn’t move immediately. Glancing around, he decided he’d slept longer than he’d intended, and that it must be well after noon. That wasn’t good. He was better than that. Or had been, once.

Stretching his new senses out, he also decided he was about to have company. These felt more like the archer than the nameless shadows of yesterday’s journey. Rather than amber, they showed red on his mini map, which was just the tiniest bit clearer than it had been yesterday. They were still a ways off yet, and coming from upwind, which was probably how the horse had picked them up.

He stood and moved back to the saddle bags. There was a picket pin in one of them, and he wanted the horse to stay put during what was about to happen. After a bit of thought, he left his bow and pack twenty or so yards back beside the trunk of a nearby tree. He wanted to look harmless until they got good and close.

He’d moved up a good twenty-five yards by the time the two riders were close enough to make out features, and for them to see that he had no crystal.

They brought up short by about ten yards. Way too close, but they wouldn’t know that yet. He simply stood there, FoeSmite grounded and upright in his right hand. His hood was up and low about his eyes, his cloak wrapped tightly around him, mostly covering his armor.

The two bandits were eyeing him critically, their attention shifting between him and the chestnut. They looked to one another and then back to the figure standing before them.

“You! Grubber!” the taller one in the surprisingly clean armor called out demandingly. “Where’d you get that horse?”

Jack had no way of knowing what had been said. Something about the horse, he thought, going by the hand gestures. He was starting to pick up the odd word here and there, but the man had spoken too rapidly. He remained as he’d been, making no move to answer.

“Maybe he’s deef?” Bonce ventured.

Thumper looked at him like he was... well, Bonce. Then back to the grubber standing in the way, between them and Lar’s horse, looking way too calm for an ungifted alone out in the middle of nowhere and facing a pair of obvious gifted.

“You know who we are?” he demanded experimentally, yelling louder in spite of himself. “You know what you get, stealing one of our animals? You get gutted, that’s what!” still no reaction. “Where’s th’ man owns that horse?” he demanded, almost as an afterthought.

“Well, then,” he decided aloud after receiving no answer. Turning once more to his companion, he nodded in the grubber’s direction. “Shall we?”

They clucked their horses a few feet closer before dismounting. Thumper climbed down and moved in, edging to the right and drawing his sword, feeding it a little power to activate the upgrades. Then he stopped dead, about fifteen feet from the still figure, his eyes going grim.

Bonce made it another couple of steps, easing left and waving his mace menacingly before realizing he’d left his companion behind. He looked back, confused.

“Grubber wearing brigandine,” Thumper informed him. “See it peekin’ out from under the cloak? Blue brigandine. I ain’t never see’d brig ranked lower than four, Bonce. You? How he wearing that?”

Bonce swung his head around to give the grubber a closer look. He wasn’t much given to thinky bits, was Bonce. He was more a smashy bits sort. But he tried. “Must be rank zero brig, I guess, Thumper,” he tried. “He wearing it ain’t he?”

“Yeah,” Thumper grunted. “And when was the last time you see’d a grubber wearing brig at all, Bonce?”

Bonce shrugged broadly. “Dunno, Thumper,” he admitted. “ When was th’ last time we saw a grubber wearing any armor at all? That village we sacked, what, last summer, maybe?”

“They was guards, Bonce,” Thumper growled. “A whole mob of ‘em, and inside the village wall, not out here with th’ fangeddy weasels, stalker cats, ‘n’ dire hares all by their lonesomes. An’ they was wearing zero rank half plate ‘n’ kettles. Brig ain’t th’ sort o’ thing grubbers wears, does they?”

“Dunno, Thumper,” Bonce repeated. “I ain’t exactly a expert on grubber armor, hey? So what we gonna do, then?”

Thumper ignored him. He was busy scanning the grass around out to the horizon, trying to figure out what was going on. Grubber wasn’t no normal grubber, that was sure. But if he wasn’t really a grubber, how was he hiding his crystal? And who was with him? There wasn’t supposed to be anybody like this around. Not for hundreds of lenn. And he was wondering if they shouldn’t be hieing themselves back to camp with this puzzle rather than sitting here waiting for an arrow between the shoulder blades. With Lar’s horse standing there all Larless, he figured he had the answer he’d been sent to get.

As slowly as he’d drawn it, he slid his blade back into its scabbard, the skin of his back itching where he expected the arrow to sink in. As slowly, he started to backstep, wanting to reach his bow, lashed to the saddle.

Jack, although he hadn’t moved while all this was going on, was watching the show pretty closely. He was catching more of what they were saying, although it made his head throb. It was when he saw the less bulky one with the sword start to resheath and back up that he decided it was time to move.

At this point, the big one with the mace was only about a dozen feet off and facing partially away. Jack lunged, sliding FoeSmite out for a spear strike. Big guy was quick, and not as oblivious as he looked. He got his mace up and around in time to swat the incoming staff out of the way, roaring like a bear and crouching down for his own charge. A massive arm flexed and the mace reversed direction so fast it seemed to lack any mass at all, swinging straight back at Jack’s head.

He was jerking FoeSmite back towards himself as he ducked the mace, close enough that it sang a song against his helmet, swiping the cloak’s hood clear. As the bandit’s bulbous face reddened, his eyes wild, that arm seemed to expand again, muscles bulging even thicker.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Jack’s left hand was closing on FoeSmite’s shaft at the midpoint as he skidded past the man to the right. The instant his grip closed, he jerked full force inward while pushing out just as hard with his right still far back along the shaft, torquing the staff into a blur. FoeSmite sang its own song as it arced into its target.

He was still off balance from the swipe to the head and the yank on the cloak, so the blow didn’t strike as true as it could have. Instead of shattering the bandit’s spine, the last foot of the staff slammed into the big man’s shoulder, cracking the backplate of his cuirass and smashing his scapula like a potato chip. He howled and staggered, but did not go down. That fact alone surprised Jack more than anything had since the first of the jaegers had popped up out of the brush. A flash of terror raced through him on razor shards.

Bonce felt his whole left side go white hot with pain and he howled. He was broken bad, he knew. But he wasn’t done, was he? He was Bonce the Crusher, by the eternal. He started the spin that would have the impossible grubber back to his front and in range of his mace, wondering where the hells Thumper had got off to. His left arm was dead, and the pain in his shoulder was making his vision dim, but his mace arm was still just fine, wasn’t it?

Jack’s brain stuttered for just a fraction of a second before he could regroup and get a grip. This was what it must mean to fight the gifted, the thought came. That blow should have put the guy down for the count just from the pain, let alone the damage to major bones, nerve bundles or blood pathways. Yet it had barely slowed him down.

He had a fleeting instant to wonder what rank the guy was before the mace was coming in again. And there was still another one somewhere nearby.

Jack spun quickly, flipped his lead hand around under FoeSmite’s shaft, and put his shoulders into what should have been an effortless redirection. FoeSmite bowed as he deflected the mace clear.

A quick step in and Jack began the lunge that would take the big goon in the throat, but brought up short, just in time to block that mace again as it’s impossibly quick return threatened to crush his chest, brigandine or no. Even blocked, the heavy blow hurled him back a couple of paces, to land in a semi-controlled roll.

The bandit was coming in again, still howling, but in rage rather than pain. Jack feinted up from the ground, torquing the staff around with his whole upper body. At the last instant, as the mace whistled in to bash it aside, he raised his trailing hand to slip the shaft under the incoming swing, then back up and over, smacking against the mace’s trailing face to speed it on its way. The mace swung wide, moving too quickly even for one of its seemingly massless reversals, chunking into the ground and allowing Jack to bring his own weapon across and into the side of the bandit’s anchoring leg.

The big bandit went down, and as he fell, he unmasked his friend, drawing down on Jack with a bow. Jack tucked FoeSmite in close and rolled, not away from the falling bandit but towards him, and the arrow bit into the ground where he should have been had he a brain in his head.

With no functioning limbs on his left side the bandit on the ground was struggling to maneuver his mace up and out of the dirt. Jack took advantage. Still on the ground, he brought FoeSmite up to full extension above him and slammed it down across the bandit’s heaving chest. The cuirass split across the center and the bandit’s mouth gaped, his eyes going wide. Another roll tucked Jack in close. Using the heaving form as cover, Jack drove the knife he’d taken from the archer on the road up into the bandit’s throat beneath the chin and up into his brain. The man went still.

A second arrow caught at his cloak as it skinned in overhead, letting him know the corpse wasn’t the cover he’d have liked it to be.

Taking a deep breath, he lunged up and over the dead man, going straight in, staff up and in both hands like a rifle at high port. Hopefully before the remaining bandit could nock a fresh arrow. He didn’t make it. He watched in horrid fascination as the bandit calmly nocked the arrow, drew, and released in a single, fluid motion, from less than five yards away.

Without slowing, and with no real hope, he shifted FoeSmite to deflect the incoming missile. To his utter astonishment, it worked. Even the bandit froze for an instant, mouth agape. And that was all the time Jack needed.

The few seconds between the grubber’s lunge forward, Bonce’s howl of pain, and the resultant exchange of counterstrikes were difficult for Thumper to fathom in the moment. His brain just couldn’t process the speed at which it was happening.

Oh, no mistake, Bonce and his Mace of Blinding Speed, he could understand. Bonce was rank thirteen specialized in strength and toughness, and the mace a rank fifteen enchanted weapon with both upgrade slots filled with speed enhancements. But the grubber had beat it off with a stick. A bloody stick! And had sundered warded, rank twelve armor with that same stick.

That wasn’t anybody he was going anywhere near with a sword could he help it. He turned and lunged for his mount.

Bonce was going down by the time he’d gotten his bow and quiver off the saddle, and he pegged a quick shot at the rolling grubber, but missed. His second shot missed as well, although he got closer. Then the idiot jumped up and tried to charge. Who did he think he was? Thumper drew a third arrow, nocked, and let fly, dead at the grubber’s face at near hand clasping range. And watched dumbstruck as his arrow was batted casually aside.

Right, then! With the impossible grubber right on top of him, he hurled his bow dead in the man’s face and drew his sword. This was obviously no grubber, he realized too late. This was a gifted of some rank, somehow hiding his crystal. He’d never even heard of such a thing before.

Thumper gave ground, looking for an edge against a weapon with twice his reach and capable of splitting rank twelve warded plate. He breathed a quiet curse to the gods who’d abandoned him. He should have run when he’d had the chance.

Jack fended off the flying bow and lurched to a stop as the bandit drew steel. He went into low guard and took a couple of deep breaths to clear his ringing head. The sword the guy was holding seemed to glow faintly, as did his breastplate and pauldrons, though in a slightly different hue. Magic, he supposed. Maybe he was growing into the system here now that he’d been recognized. Tiarraluna had suggested he might.

He wanted out of the cloak. It had been good while it was hiding his armor and sword, but trying to fight in it had nearly gotten him killed a couple of times just in the past minute or so. He doubted the bandit would call a truce while he doffed it, though.

The guy was edging back, clearly not comfortable facing the reach of the staff, or its now obvious destructive power. Jack allowed him to gain some distance. The bow had been his greatest fear, but it was out of play. On the other hand, he wasn’t about to let the clown remount his horse, which looked to be his intent. He was in no mood for a horse race in the direction of the bandit camp. He took a couple of steps, shifting right to crowd the animal and block his opponent’s way

They danced like this for a few more minutes, Jack essaying a strike here and there while the bandit contented himself with evading or blocking, like he was feeling Jack out. And he was blocking. None of the moves that had worked on the testing dolls nor with his sparring partners back on earth were working for damn all on this character. His swordplay was on another level. That wasn’t good.

He could break the sword, Jack supposed, if he could get a good hard swing at it. But given the obvious skill of the swordsman, he was completely unwilling to give him such an opening. He had a feeling that if he brought FoeSmite too far off line, the bandit would be inside his guard and have that blade in his guts before he noticed movement. Then, too, that damned mace had survived several solid strikes, hadn’t it? Mightn’t the sword?